


evidence of things not seen

by crownedcarl



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Depression, Eating Disorders, Gen, Hallucinations, Other, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 19:56:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7947055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedcarl/pseuds/crownedcarl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The only person that’s ever believed in me is dead,” he says helplessly, eyes burning. “You’re not really here. Stop telling me fairytales.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	evidence of things not seen

**Author's Note:**

> this has been sitting around in my docs for a lifetime so. 'twas posting time.
> 
> everything that needs warning has been tagged, but beware of...dark themes? i guess? allusions to jaha/murphy, in case that's not your cup of tea.

“John,” doctor Griffin says. _John_ , Jaha says, pressed up against Murphy’s back. “I need to know why you aren’t taking care of yourself.”

He wants to laugh, but the sound dies somewhere in his throat. “I’m not hungry,” Murphy says, “And I can’t sleep. What else do you want me to say?”

He is so, so hungry, and sleep never takes him anywhere safe. Awake, Murphy knows. Awake, he knows that Jaha died in the desert, his idealism dying with him, but asleep, Murphy has no control. His grip on reality is thin enough, already. The dreams make it worse.

-

_You’re special, John._

There’s bile building in Murphy’s throat.

-

Doctor Griffin calls it depression. The grounders call it weakness; either way, Murphy doesn’t care what they say. He’s wasting away quietly. He didn’t ask for anyone to interfere or try to help him - they did that. They made him their business.

He can’t sleep when Jaha is there, talking to him, Murphy’s name tender in Jaha’s mouth. It makes him nauseous, hearing it, but there isn’t anywhere that he can go where Jaha won’t follow. Murphy sees him in every reflection.

In the desert, Jaha showed him the way. In the desert, Jaha let him be a different man - a better man, but here, Murphy is nobody. He’s nothing.

“I’m not a leader,” he says, the words ringing out dully in the silence of his quarters. “I never was.”

He had to put his faith somewhere, so he gave it to Jaha, and Jaha died. Jaha is a story that parents will tell their children, but to Murphy, Jaha is his own personal hell; he never leaves. He never fucking leaves.

-

Murphy leans forward. He puts his damp forehead to the cold surface of the mirror, and he watches his own breath leave a thin sheen of fog against the glass. It feels solid. It feels real. Jaha feels real, too, when he gentles a hand along Murphy’s spine.

 _This isn’t what I wanted,_ he thinks, eyes closed. Jaha chases a shiver all the way up his back, fingers light against Murphy’s skin, thumb caressing the sharp vertebrae at the top of Murphy’s spine. _I’m losing my mind. I’m seeing ghosts._

-

Murphy is losing weight, but every day makes him feel heavier than the one before. He doesn’t want to look at himself in the mirror.

-

_You have to eat, John. They need you. You can’t save them like this._

“I can’t save anyone,” Murphy says, staring up at the ceiling. He feels cold. His entire body feels cold, all the time, even when he’s sitting outside in the sunshine, wearing more layers than the people around him. “This is a joke. Who’s savior am I going to be, huh?”

Jaha believed in him. Jaha died. Murphy doesn’t think about that often. _You were destined for better things than this,_ Jaha says, and Murphy turns his face into a shoulder that isn’t really there. He remembers this, from the desert. Everything was different, there. _I see it in you. You’re going to change this world._

Murphy laughs. He surprises himself with just how hard he laughs, stomach cramping, but that could be the hunger that eats at him every day. Murphy is a killer. Murphy is expendable. Murphy doesn’t matter, but Jaha thinks that he could be a hero.

“The only person that’s ever believed in me is dead,” he says helplessly, eyes burning. “You’re not really here. Stop telling me fairytales.”

The silence might be worse than the talking. Murphy is seized by panic, for a moment, when he thinks that Jaha is gone - even after wishing for it, it doesn’t feel possible. That isn’t what he wanted. Murphy has no idea what he wants, but he opens his eyes, and Jaha is sitting at the edge of the bed, his smile a quiet, knowing thing. _Eat,_ he tells Murphy. _You need to be strong for them._

It feels like fighting a battle that never quite ends. Murphy has tried to be the good guy, but it doesn’t fit him. He’s been the scapegoat and the sacrifice and the enemy, but he’s never been the hero.

He stares up at the ceiling, feeling Jaha’s eyes on him. “You’re not real,” Murphy says. “You can’t make me do anything.”

-

Jaha is leading them through the barrenness with nothing but faith. Around the fire, Jaha looks like destiny instead of power; he looks like purpose instead of authority, and Murphy wants to ask him how he does it - where he gets that endless determination and certainty, making up for everything that Murphy lacks.

The stars are bright when Jaha says “John Murphy,” in a thoughtful voice, his face half-cast in shadow. “You still doubt.”

Murphy shrugs, rubbing his hands together. It gets cold at night, in the desert. He didn’t know that, before. “We’re on a suicide mission,” he tells Jaha, voice pointed. “We’re down in our numbers, down on our luck, and we’re almost out of water. How the hell do you expect me not to doubt?”

Jaha had a child. Thelonious Jaha was a father, and John Murphy was a son. They’ve both been reduced to less. “Faith,” Jaha says, looking at Murphy from across the fire, “Is fragile. We need to nurture it, John. We need to let it take root. As long as you have faith, the rest will come in time.”

The words are nothing but confident; Murphy snorts, disbelieving, and pretends that he doesn’t feel Jaha looking at him. “Awesome,” he mutters. “More cryptic wisdom.”

He sometimes thinks that Jaha knows more than he says. Murphy glances at him, and it’s a brief, unimportant moment, but Murphy never forgets it. “One day,” Jaha says, “You’ll understand. I might not be with you, but you’ll understand.”

It fills Murphy with dreadful purpose, but he never understands why.

-

Jaha died in the desert. Murphy thinks that he died in the desert, too, and that nothing since then has been real.

Jaha is dead, but he makes Murphy eat, and he makes Murphy sleep, and some days, he makes Murphy feel like he matters; if a ghost is watching over him, maybe he isn’t beyond salvation.

 _John,_ Jaha says, tender eyes looking at Murphy. John, he says, and the darkness feels like something safe.

**Author's Note:**

> Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
> 
> \- Hebrews 11:1.


End file.
